{"id":2652,"date":"2014-10-01T15:58:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-01T22:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/?p=2652"},"modified":"2018-03-13T12:09:57","modified_gmt":"2018-03-13T19:09:57","slug":"october-1-2014-the-old-oak-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/life-stories\/october-1-2014-the-old-oak-tree\/","title":{"rendered":"October 1, 2014 &#8211; The old oak tree"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"fcbkbttn_buttons_block\" id=\"fcbkbttn_left\"><div class=\"fcbkbttn_button\">\n                            <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">\n                                <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/wp-content\/plugins\/facebook-button-plugin\/images\/standard-facebook-ico.png\" alt=\"Fb-Button\" \/>\n                            <\/a>\n                        <\/div><div class=\"fcbkbttn_like \"><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/life-stories\/october-1-2014-the-old-oak-tree\/\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\" layout=\"standard\"  width=\"225px\" size=\"small\"><\/fb:like><\/div><\/div><p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/oak.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2654 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/oak-e1455662262378.jpg\" alt=\"oak\" width=\"500\" height=\"667\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/oak-e1455662262378.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/oak-e1455662262378-300x400.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Listen to this post:<\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-2652-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/20141001-Post-1.m4a?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/20141001-Post-1.m4a\">http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/20141001-Post-1.m4a<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>A week ago this morning, at 1:30 am, a huge limb from our ancient coast live oak tree (they say it could be anywhere from 150-300 years old) fell on our house, kicking off a chain of events that nearly completely took over my psyche.<\/p>\n<p>This tree is 8 feet in diameter, 6 feet from our front door \u2013 and about 45 feet tall and twice as wide. We live under it. It probably should not have had a house built so close to it, but that was done in 1954 before either\u00a0of us\u00a0were born.\u00a0 Now it is ours to care for and steward.\u00a0 It lost an even bigger limb in May &#8211; due to internal rot, which so politely landed without harming the fence or the neighbor\u2019s roof where it rested itself.<\/p>\n<p>This one did a bit of damage \u2013 not huge, but it landed literally 5 feet or so from the skylight in my studio, the one I was painting under a few hours earlier.\u00a0 \u00a0It bashed a hole in the eave and shook the house \u2013 and us! \u00a0 The consulting arborist came at first light and, seeing the solid wood of this branch, declared the tree likely unsafe.\u00a0 He suspected the wood is dry and brittle due to the drought.<\/p>\n<p>This meant it was upon us to take down this enormous, beautiful piece of nature\u2019s sculpture &#8211; that processes who knows how much CO2 into oxygen every day \u2013 and has been since likely before Abraham Lincoln was born.\u00a0 I wept.\u00a0 I talked to a \u201ctree whisperer\u201d \u2013 a lovely woman named Heather Preston, who I met when working for Light Rain, doing art reproduction. We worked on all the images for her beautiful book called <a title=\"tree spirits\" href=\"http:\/\/smile.amazon.com\/TREE-SPIRITS-ENCOUNTERS-Winner-Finalist\/dp\/0692001115\/ref=smi_www_rcolv2_go_smi?_encoding=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201cTree Spirits.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 She consoled me and wisely suggested that I honor it by capturing it in photos, drawings, paintings &#8211; and then with ceremony, before we took it down.<\/p>\n<p>It was a huge deal to have the responsibility of deciding this tree\u2019s fate. It seemed so unconceivable, looking up into it, still seemingly so very alive.\u00a0 The next morning, I called the arborist to ask if we could press the pause button on the permit process to \u201cremove\u201d it.\u00a0 He was at the time in conference with his colleagues on how we could mitigate the risk so we could safely live under it. \u00a0<i>None<\/i> of us had the stomach to take it down.\u00a0 The birds, the squirrels, the shade-loving plants beneath it, it\u2019s a whole eco-system. So we\u2019ve decided to prune it rather aggressively and then cable the limbs together. I\u2019m so relieved \u2013 <i>and<\/i> still leery of being under it.\u00a0 I\u2019m painting at the kitchen counter until it\u2019s tended to!<\/p>\n<p>We\u00a0noticed that this year it has had an unusually abundant crop of acorns, and asked the arborist if the tree \u201cknows\u201d it\u2019s in decline and is working extra hard to ensure its reproduction. This had me noticing the other coast live oaks in the area on my morning hike with Bo.\u00a0 I saw that many of the trees had no acorns at all and none had anywhere near the amount on our tree.\u00a0 This triggered my compulsion to head to Google. (I used to be a search geek for a living!)\u00a0 I searched for \u201coak tree age acorn production\u201d and I learned that oak trees don\u2019t actually start producing acorns until they are sometimes as old as 25 years! Wow!\u00a0 Twenty five years before they develop the resources to reproduce themselves.\u00a0 Talk about patience!<\/p>\n<p>Now, in its old-age, this tree is cranking out the seeds for potential new oaks like crazy.\u00a0 This so speaks to me in my own process to grow myself as an artist and teacher\/leader\/guide.\u00a0 Our insta-famous crazed world, where going-viral is revered, though super-compelling, is unsettling to me.\u00a0 It\u2019s obvious to me now why \u2013 it\u2019s against nature.\u00a0 Things that matter the most come in their own time; they require of us faithful hard work, and a season-after-season maturation process in order to bear fruit in abundance.<\/p>\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Listen to this post: A week ago this morning, at 1:30 am, a huge limb from our ancient coast live oak tree (they say it could be anywhere from 150-300 years old) fell on our house, kicking off a chain of events that nearly completely took over my psyche. This tree is 8 feet in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2654,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29],"tags":[90,88,87,89],"class_list":["post-2652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-stories","tag-ambition","tag-maturation","tag-natural-process","tag-timing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>October 1, 2014 - The old oak tree - Life in Full Color<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/life-stories\/october-1-2014-the-old-oak-tree\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"October 1, 2014 - The old oak tree - Life in Full Color\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Listen to this post: A week ago this morning, at 1:30 am, a huge limb from our ancient coast live oak tree (they say it could be anywhere from 150-300 years old) fell on our house, kicking off a chain of events that nearly completely took over my psyche. 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